


What Else I Got To Do?

by Oshii



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Be gentle, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, My First AO3 Post, another daryl tag for good measure, carol's motherly meddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 09:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshii/pseuds/Oshii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl's sick. Carol gets him a blanket. Short but sweet little h/c Caryl drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Else I Got To Do?

**Author's Note:**

> My first Walking Dead fic, based off the TV show, as I've never read the comics. Carol's last line (and the title of this fic) is based off Daryl's response to her asking him, in season 2, why he was so adamant on searching for Sophia.
> 
> It's short as shit, but I just felt like writing a little h/c Caryl drabble :)

Carol snuck a furtive glance over her shoulder, wrapping her fingers around the folded blanket in the pile of clean laundry. Sensing no danger, she carefully retrieved the blanket and made her way back to the RV. The musty smell hit her before she finished climbing the steps inside.  
“Here,” she murmured softly. “Gotcha another blanket. ‘S nice and clean.”

Daryl shifted slightly, just enough to crane his neck and look up at her. His eyes were slitted, barely open, sunken in his pale face. He croaked out something that might’ve been “thanks” and shivered as Carol draped the blanket over his depleted frame. He inhaled sharply, and his body jerked with a chest-cracking cough; he curled in on himself from the force. Carol grabbed the bowl on the nightstand and held it up in time for him to hack and spit up several thick bullets of bloody phlegm. She resisted the urge to put her hand on his back. Daryl didn’t like to be soothed. 

When the coughing fit subsided, he lay back down onto the worn-flat pillow and closed his eyes, breathing thick and labored, lips parted with the effort. Carol set the bowl down and looked around for the washcloth that’d been lying beside it. She wished Rick and the others had been able to find some antibiotics on their last run. Daryl was getting worse, and all Dale’d had to offer was a half-empty bottle of ibuprofen for the fever and aches. Nothing for the cough. 

At least, with the fluctuating fever, he hadn’t been delirious. He’d muttered Merle’s name once, but Carol was pretty sure he’d just been dreaming.

“You don’t gotta stay here,” Daryl rasped, eyes still closed. His skin glistened with sweat, but whether it was from the fever or the muggy heat in the RV, Carol wasn’t sure. The temperature had soared to a sweltering 111°F that day, thick and humid and miserable, and had barely tapered off after the sun had set, so the night air was still hot and stifling. However, the chills had come and gone the past few hours, wracking his frame ceaselessly, so he absolutely couldn’t get warm when an attack did arise. Carol sweated more just looking at him under all the blankets in the RV. 

Carol found the washcloth on the floor. It was warm and dry. She picked it up and looked at Daryl, giving him a small shrug. “What else I got to do?” 

He cracked one eye open, eyeing her with dull amusement. She smiled back at him and went over to the kitchenette sink to wet the washcloth.


End file.
